Over 3, 500 Irish women had UK abortion last year

June 13, 2014

By staff reporter

According to figures just released by the British Department of Health, more than 3, 500 women from the Republic of Ireland travelled to Britain last year for abortions.

There were a total of 5,469 abortions to women resident outside England and Wales, compared with 5,850 in 2012 – 67 per cent of which were from the Republic, while 15 per cent were from Northern Ireland.

The Irish Family Planning Association said that the figures were “a modern indictment of the State’s treatment of women with unplanned or unwanted pregnancies”.

The total number of abortions carried out in England and Wales during 2013 was at 190,800 – 0.1 per cent more than in 2012, but 2.1 per cent up on the figure reported a ten years ago.

Keeping in mind the population increase, the total of 185,000 abortions performed on British women is now at its lowest level on a percentage basis since the year 1997.

But it is still twice the rate of 7.8 per 1,000 British-resident women that were carried out in 1970, according to the statistics.